How Covert Agents Infiltrate the Internet to Manipulate, Deceive, and Destroy Reputations

From Glenn Greenwald at The Intercept comes this completely unsurprising story:

Among the core self-identified purposes of JTRIG are two tactics: (1) to inject all sorts of false material onto the internet in order to destroy the reputation of its targets; and (2) to use social sciences and other techniques to manipulate online discourse and activism to generate outcomes it considers desirable

But what should be surprising and disturbing are the tactics, which frankly can destroy innocent lives and families:

Critically, the “targets” for this deceit and reputation-destruction extend far beyond the customary roster of normal spycraft: hostile nations and their leaders, military agencies, and intelligence services. In fact, the discussion of many of these techniques occurs in the context of using them in lieu of “traditional law enforcement” against people suspected (but not charged or convicted) of ordinary crimes or, more broadly still, “hacktivism”, meaning those who use online protest activity for political ends.

I’m thinking that overall the internet is a pretty bad thing. It’s created a lot of good, but it’s hidden a huge amount of evil done by the morally irresponsible governments of the “free world”. I wonder if we really tried to balance the wonderful and the terrible of the internet, if the scales would even be close to level.